1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to borehole drills, and more particularly to a manual or human-powered borehole drill
2. Background and Related Art
Tanzania is one of the many countries in the world that suffers from extreme poverty. Many of the hardships in Tanzania can be attributed to the lack of clean water. Despite the facts that the country is surrounded by three major lakes and an ocean, and 7% of its area is covered by fresh water, it is difficult to find clean water because the water is contaminated and not suitable for human consumption.
Potable, or drinkable, water is the basis for a better life. It is estimated that Tanzanian women and children spend an average of 2 hours a day just collecting water, and it is common to find people who walk 6 hours just to find water. Other than the time concerns, 80% of all disease in developing countries is caused by bad water. Many of these people die because of the lack of medicine and health care. Since these people are collecting contaminated water, they spend their time being sick, visiting doctors, and paying for medicine they cannot afford. Although the people know the water makes them sick, they have no alternative.
Installing a village water well dramatically reduces all of these concerns and provides clean water for up to 1,500 families. Not only can the children go to school and the people have more time to help themselves financially, but they also have more opportunities to start businesses and in turn help the village progress.
Unfortunately, many villages lack clean water wells because the current methods of drilling in Tanzania are limited by opposite extremes. One option for drilling a well is a professional drilling rig, which is too expensive (from $15,000 to $20,000), while the other option is a homemade drilling system, which is too primitive and therefore unsuccessful drilling beyond 100 feet, where potable water is reached.
Of course, a professional drilling rig can drill to depths sufficient to access clean drinking water, but it costs upwards of $20,000 to hire the rig for the few days required to drill the borehole. The villages that need these wells cannot afford to spend this extreme amount of money. As a result, they turn to homemade drilling systems, which often are insufficient. The primitive, manual methods with which they dig or drill simply cannot penetrate deep enough to access clean water. The two main manual methods in most developing countries are hand augering and Rota-sludge. Hand augering simply uses an auger to dig the earth away and is effective only in soft soil formations, reaching depths of no more than 30 m (about 100 ft). Rota-sludge is a less effective method because it reaches the same depths but has success in much less diverse formations. In all manual techniques, due to limited mechanical advantage and strength of tools, these methods generally are not sufficient to reach the depths required to access clean water.